So THEY say. But we have contrary evidence from someone who was actually THERE at the video shoot - dancer and entertainer Slim K. This is what he says on his MySpace:

"I did not see, nor witnessed, anything wrong or bad about Britney. She acted professional and worked very hard - and I thought she looked damn sexy and hot. Couldn’t get my eyes off her! The new song is a smash and I’m looking forward to finish the job!

I’m sorry and sad about what’s been published and written about her these past two weeks - it’s s shame.

The new music video is NOT finished yet.... the project is NOT dead - we are all very busy you know."

I'm prepared to bet that the whole "breakdown on the video shoot" story was concocted at somebody's desk in the News of the World offices. There was no "source". They didn't contact anybody, and nobody contacted them. What happened was that they confused Britney's new VIDEO shoot with her new PHOTO shoot for OK magazine (about which we've already been told ONE side of the story already).

The pictures they built their story around are NOT candid paparazzi shots. They are OFFICIAL publicity pictures from the video shoot, taken by an OFFICIAL stills photographer, Alec Byrne, who was hired to be there. And the fact that these official pictures appeared in a newspaper means they were given official CLEARANCE for release to the press.

So that means everything you see in the pictures is part of the storyline of the video. She's ACTING, folks!

But if you're the editor of a weekly celeb mag, you have to see beyond the obvious. This is BRITNEY SPEARS, for **** sake! There HAS to be a bad news angle in there somewhere. And, bless their twisted little hearts, they managed to find one.

The favorite comment was that she had "lost the toned tummy", that she looked "chunky" and was now to be considered fat. To me, looking at the original pictures again, this seems nothing short of incredible, but somehow the mags manage to "squash" their pictures to make Britney look about 4 feet high and equally as wide.

Now obviously when you've created THIS story out of nothing, you can spin it into another one, which is that her increasing size and fatness is a sign that she's stopped looking after herself, isn't dieting or training any more, and is basically just letting everything go to hell. Meltdown, everybody!!!

You can also point out that stripping off and striding into the cold sea is yet another sign of incipient insanity. It all depends on how you word it. Was she smiling and laughing, or did she cackle like a witch and have a mad gleam in her eye? It's pretty much up to the editor to decide if it's to be good news or bad.

If this had been Beyonce, you can be sure the word "bootylicious" would have featured somewhere in the captions. "Beyonce displaying her enviable curves". But the same curves on Britney Spears are anything but enviable, apparently.

One of the mags managed to go a step further. They picked out a pic that showed Brit bending forwards and claimed that this revealed a "lumpy stomach", which was clear evidence of liposuction! Er..... why didn't they show any of the OTHER pictures, which showed her tummy looking smooth and toned?

They used to say "the camera cannot lie". But that was then and this is now. It lies. Or the captions and image manipulators do.

I only ask because the celeb gossip writers on most of the UK's major tabloids seem unable even to comprehend the possibility that a music video could be a mini-movie, that it could have a fictitious story-line and that a famous singer could play a role in it as an actor or actress.

The release of a couple of images of Britney in her "prostitute at a funeral" outfit from the set of her latest video seemed to find these writers unable to distinguish fantasy from reality. They set into her straight away to criticize her dress sense, her skin tone, her use of make-up, her judgment and (of course) her sanity.

It was as if the pix were the latest paparazzi shots and Britney was dressed and made-up like that to go down to the local pet store to buy another dog.

One of the writers used the occasion to weave a whole article about how much better Lindsay Lohan had done in rehab than Britney! Her weird garb was evidence that she was "more out of control than ever", and her "sallow" complexion and heavy white make-up were a poor contrast with LiLo's fresh and tanned appearance!

Absolutely NO allowance was made for the fact that Britney herself has evidence that she should never have been in rehab in the first place, and NO mention is made of the fact that it's Lindsay, not Britney, who's currently up on a drink-driving charge and could end up in jail in a few weeks' time.

Another writer ventured to suggest that if this was the current state of Britney, we could be pretty sure her comeback would be a flop and her new single would be rubbish!

OK, so what conclusions can we draw from all of this? Well one would be that tabloid newspapers are prepared to accommodate an abysmal standard of journalism - spiteful, malicious, cruel, lazy, ignorant, incompetent, ill-informed, inaccurate, unfair and unbalanced are just a few of the descriptors that come to mind.

Another is just how much damage has been done to Britney in the lazy, spiteful world of "casual tagging", whereby a term applied by the media to someone on the basis of one or more incidents in the past is used against them for ever more. Thus is Christina Aguilera "dirrty" no matter how many times a day she washes. And, of course, Britney is an alcoholic, a druggie or a lunatic because she was in rehab for a while. No wonder she's mad at her family and anyone else who blackmailed her into going in there with the threat of losing her children.

A final conclusion is that the world of pop video really has gone downhill while Britney's been away. Instead of becoming more dramatic and imaginative, with more role-playing, acting and story-telling, pop videos have pretty much reverted to footage of the artist singing on a set. How sad, and how boring. It's exciting and refreshing that Britney seems to be ready to push them in another direction again, but people with influence - such as celeb gossip writers - need to stop being stupid about it and try to grasp what's going on.

To show how effective this approach is, here's an example.Abi Titmuss, one of the UK's best-known Z-list celebs (who admits to having no talent at all except for making money from her own image) has made a whole career out of posing for seemingly-candid quasi-shocking naked and near-naked pictures. The trick is that NONE of them are genuinely candid, paparazzi shots. They are ALL set up by her and she owns the publication rights to all of them. She makes sure she's never seen at any other time except in the most tasteful and carefully chosen clothing and with her hair and make-up in perfect condition. And so she never appears to have an ugly or laughable side.

Britney Spears, on the other hand, insists on rebelling against this convention. She never seems to bother trying to stage-manage "good news" stories about herself. She never seems to bother providing the tabloids and celeb mags with flattering pseudo-candid photo-ops. Any good looking images they may snatch of her on a Monday are obliterated by bad looking ones they grab on a Tuesday. Remember the "Britney's perfect rear" story followed immediately by "Brit's wobbly rear"? That shouldn't have happened. And how many other world-class celebrities would allow photographers close enough to a changing room to get pix of their bare and unposed breasts as Britney did a few days ago?

And so we come to Britney's family troubles. She could have created a pleasantly bland front to cover any issues she had with her mom, while working away in the background to resolve them. But what does she do? She goes to a freaking FILM SET, and, in front of about a hundred paparazzi, hands her mom a threatening letter. Her mom has had the wit and wisdom to handle the media the way Britney should have done, but it takes both sides to co-operate in a situation like this. In her desire to avoid showbiz artificiality and be "just a regular girl" when she's not actually working, Britney has become her own worst enemy.

A constant flow of ugly and unpleasant stories about her flow into the media almost every week. The constant drip-drip-drip is wearing away the belief and resilience of even her staunchest fans. They've destroyed the public's belief in her talent, then in her looks, then in her sanity and now they're working away on her personality. Did we EVER think we were going to be wondering one day if Britney Spears was a world-class bitch who would cut her own mother out of her life? OK, as of today I still don't believe it. But what's Britney doing to convince us that she's still the sweet, loving girl we always thought she was?

When this demolition job has been completed, there will be nothing left for her to cling to, nothing that would give people pleasant, positive thoughts when they hear the name "Britney Spears". How does she recreate her image when she has her entire reputation for talent, beauty, sweetness and big-heartedness to rebuild? This girl had a mountain to climb and I wonder if she really knows it.

But I should have known better. Instead of all the good things they COULD have said about her, almost every one of them picked up on a story that she drank too much in a club one night and was sick.

To say that they picked up the ball and ran with it would be the understatement of the year. The impression anyone who hasn't been following Britney's life really closely would have picked up from all these overwrought accounts was that she did this EVERY night, and this was just one typical example.

Needless to say, all the predictable conclusions were drawn. "Everyone thinks she's doing well now, but they're wrong". "Kevin is following his soon-to-be-ex-wife's downfall with interest since his aim is to get sole custody of the boys" - and so on.

There's a shocking lack of journalistic professionalism in all of this. Did the editors of these magazines not think to wonder "What was she doing every other night of the last fortnight?" If they did wonder, they didn't bother to investigate or even to attempt to give a balanced picture.

It's like the "Britney has cellulite on her butt!" shock pic from mid-week. Did the editors, who published celebratory pix of her almost bare and visibly perfect ass just a few days before, not think to ask "How the **** could ANYONE, even BRITNEY SPEARS develop cellulite in a week?" Or to check out pictures taken two days LATER, featuring Jayden, which showed her decidedly non-lumpy butt once again and ask themselves how she LOST her cellulite in less than a week? We'd all be interested to know the answer to that one.

The simple fact is that the media are falling over themselves to publish bad news about Britney, even when there really isn't any. She must look at the tabloids and simply despair. It seems she's not even allowed to party ONE night in a month now. She may think it's normal for young women to go out once in a while, but apparently not. And as for her body - even being near-perfect isn't good enough.

All the papers were full of praise at this very visible evidence of her recovery, and the words "The Pop Princess" were being used about her once more. And I was reminded of the kind of press coverage she USED to get, from 2001 to mid-2004.

For every "bad news" story about something she had allegedly done, there was, probably the very next day, a counterbalancing "good news" story. In Britney's case, the good news was always a sexy picture showing a lot of skin, with a favorable "Phwoaaar!" style caption.

Even the day after coverage of the "Crossroads" premiere debacle, the tabloids contained pictures of Britney and her friends lying face down, bottoms up, in their bikinis at the seashore.

For a long time recently, this bad news / good news alternation wasn't taking place, because Britney was looking very remote from the "phwoaaar!" category of female star. But now she's on her way back, and there have been quite a few visual appreciations of her body lately.

Even better is that this latest picture celebrates her ass. I know it sounds crazy, but when you're a female star, appreciation of your boobs doesn't count for much in this over-inflated, artificial world. And anyway, polls always show that a man's favorite part of a woman is her ass! Apparently there's something about the "earth mother" primeval role of the female in the preference.

So, to be recognised for the beauty and shapeliness of that part of your anatomy is not merely to be seen as beautiful and glamorous but to be loved and admired on a deep psychological level for the possession of the most desirable and fundamental proto-female qualities. And once you're accepted as "bootylicious" you're a permanent member of an exclusive club. However, mere photos of the booty are not enough. Showbiz writers have to start mentioning it.

Ass-admiration worked a treat for Kylie Minogue and it's working now for Beyonce. The fiction of having a great ass even propelled Jessica Simpson to new heights of lad-mag credibility for a while. All Britney needs is a few favorable comments or a useful nickname linking her to bootyliciousness and her career will be on track for new heights!

It's always good when an artist keeps in touch with his/her fans. Many artists write simple, factual messages saying what they're doing and what their plans are, and hoping their fans are all doing well and keeping happy. Britney has never done this. I've remarked before that she's one of the least communicative of artists, and Ruben at WoB went on about it endlessly.

For a long time, she left it to her mother to write reasonably regular "Lynne's Corner" messages, but fans were usually disappointed that these told them more about Britney's family than about her, and they never said ANYTHING about her plans or her work. Then, a couple of years ago, Britney informed fans that SHE would be taking over and writing messages herself.

And for a while, she did. She told us directly that she was taking a break and wouldn't be touring for a couple of years. She told us that talk of her retirement was "harsh". She expressed her excitement about the things going on in her personal life, especially her pregnancy.

There were also the "Stream Of Consciousness" examples of Britney's spirituality and other-worldliness. It's hard to know whether to file the latest message in that category (since it's just a thank-you) but it certainly seems like it. I'm sure that by "this brighter state" she means not only her post-rehab happiness and healthiness but also a feeling of being reconnected to God.

That she should refer to "this trying time" is troubling. Clearly everything in Britney's world is not as she would want it to be. But if we consider that she is now divorced, yet is a woman who seems to struggle when she doesn't have a lover to go home to; that she seems to have become estranged from her family, and hasn't been to Kentwood or to visit her sister for many months; that she seems to be at odds with Larry Rudolph, who she was depending on to guide her comeback..... There's plenty of reasons why she would find these times trying, even if she looks like someone enjoying life.

"We are all lights of the world"......is she referring to stars and celebrities? Or does she really mean everybody? I think she includes us too, because it's a great principle for life. Look to the higher power and try to inspire others. If Britney continues to live her life like that, those who have always loved her but recently saw her go astray can trust her again and she can finally regain her Angel Wings.

Then there were the pictures of her posing topless with flowers over her nipples. Some of the fans were convinced this would attract comments on her supposed "sluttiness" but in fact the UK daily papers regarded them as evidence of Britney's steady recovery and the beneficial effects of rehab. "This is the Britney we know and love!" said the Daily Mirror.

Next day, the Daily Sport was showing a still from her Vegas show, where a large proportion of her butt was on view. The paper compared this event to other celeb exposures of the day and decided Britney's was the hottest. In fact, their whole stance on her was a reversion to simple lustful appreciation - and THAT hasn't happened for a while.

Then we had FHM magazine's "World's 100 Hottest Women", and, amazingly, Britney was there. Admittedly she was only at no. 58, but this was BEFORE her recent hotting-up.

The most surprising thing on the newsstands this week, though, was the National Enquirer, bearing the front page headline "Britney's Shocking Comeback!" Inside, they devoted 3 pages to a completely positive description of all the ways in which - every day, in every way - she's getting better and better. The lack of snidery was startling - as was their account of her gruelling fitness-through-dance regime and her 1000 sit-up sessions.

"Praise the Lord because the princess of the pop scene is back, back, back" was Heat Magazine's joyous celebration of her return to the stage. Even her fans have been showing more restraint.

But, like I said, enjoy it while you can. No doubt the US media, parrotting the gratuitous bitching of the ridiculous "Perez Hilton", will soon bring us back to Earth with their sniffy, snidey, snobby neo-Victorian judgmentalism.

The unending tide of Britney-hate started in the UK tabloids following the "Crossroads" premiere debacle (where some photographers' booing managed to convince everyone else that Britney's fans were deserting her). But their recent commentary on Britney has actually been less critical than that of many of her so-called fans.

NONE of them called her "topless with flowers" pictures slutty, or bashed her for them in any way. In fact, the Daily Mirror said this was the Britney we know and love and proved how much good rehab had done her! If it wasn't for the fact that she's allegedly fired him, I'd suspect the release of the pix was a typical Larry Rudolph PR stunt!

I know I may be premature in saying this, but we've had two days of favorable Britney headlines in the UK tabloids this week and I think it's a sign of something. Most new artists get a warm and helpful welcome, but then if they look TOO perfect or too much of a fake showbiz creation, they get taken down. A trial-by-fire begins.....and can last a LONG time.

BUT, if the artist survives the trial and comes back looking unembittered and good-to-go it seems like the media treat them with a new respect and it's something that lasts. It's hard to imagine it now, but many years ago artists who now can do no wrong in the eyes of the media, like Madonna and Kylie, had to endure these same rites of passage.

But now they're in that rare category marked "troupers" - bighearted survivors with troubles in their past and tales to tell of a life well lived. I think Britney may be just about to enter that exclusive group, and if she does, the UK media will take her to their hearts. I think that to some extent they already have. I hope the US media are able to throw of their pious sniffiness and follow suit.